Chapter VIII
Declaration of Independence
At the beginning of the war, most people only wanted a voice in governmental decisions such as levying taxes. Very few people thought of independence. But after a large number of men were killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill, attitudes began to change. People whose families had lived in America for many generations were beginning to think of themselves as Americans. Soon it became clear to many people that England would not give them a voice in their government. The powerful merchant class in America wanted to control its own economy. In January of 1776, Thomas Paine published a fifty-page pamphlet called Common Sense. In three months time, 100,000 copies were sold. Paine did not like the king, and he wanted the colonies to become independent. Many people who read his pamphlet were convinced by his arguments.
Soon, more than half of the delegates at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia began to think about becoming independent. On May 10, 1776, they appointed a committee of five people to write a document to make America independent.
Thomas Jefferson wrote most of the document called the Declaration of Independence. He was only thirty-three years old at the time. Jefferson had strong opinions about human rights. He believed that people were born with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that no government should be allowed to take them away. If the rulers tried to take these rights away, then the people had the right to choose a new government. Jefferson believed that the government should consider all men to be equal, and he was against the feudal idea of a nobility. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson explains why the colonies should be free. In the first part, he says that the purpose of government is to guarantee to people their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Governments get their legitimacy from the people. Whenever the government does not do what it should be doing, the people have the right to change it or to replace it with a different government that they think will be better. In the second part, he wrote about the grievances that the people of the colonies had against the king of England. He accuses the English king of denying these rights to the American people and that is why the American people have a right to be independent.
The delegates in Philadelphia voted to accept the Declaration of Independence on July 4,1776. They decided to make Philadelphia the capital of the new country. George Washington became the commander of the United States army. Because they were independent, they did not want to be called colonies any more. Each of the colonies became a state.
Today, the Fourth of July is called Independence Day. It is the most important patriotic holiday in America. Many families have picnics. In some places, there are parades. In other places, there are gatherings with speeches and music. In the evening, there are fireworks in all of the cities and towns.
For many months, the British army had been preparing to return. A few weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the waters around New York filled with British ships. Never before had Britain sent anywhere such a large military force. There were hundreds of ships filled with soldiers and supplies. Thirty two thousand disciplined British soldiers entered New York. Washington had only nineteen thousand soldiers and his soldiers were poorly trained and equipped. Washington had no ships. The British pushed the American army out of New York and out of the nearby New Jersey cities.
Most of the British soldiers were English, but to get more soldiers, the king of England had sent to Germany and hired German mercenaries to fight for him. However, the Germans were not good soldiers because they were mostly interested in getting money. The British army sent the Germans to occupy the city of Trenton in New Jersey. On Christmas Eve in 1776, Washington and his soldiers crossed the icy river, and attacked the Germans who were having a Christmas party. The Germans were defeated and scattered. When the war ended, some of the Germans decided not to go home, but to stay in America.
George Washington asked a woman named Betsy Ross to design a flag for the new country. She sewed thirteen red and white stripes together, one for each of the original thirteen states. In the corner, she put a blue field with thirteen stars, one for each state. Each time a new state was created, another star was placed on the blue field. Today the number of stripes is the same, but the number of stars is fifty, one for each state.
From the beginning, France secretly sent guns and ammunition to help the Revolution. In 1778, France went to war against England and formed an alliance with the United States. A few months later, Spain went to war against England.
The war went on and on. George Washington was a clever general. In 1781, after six years of fighting, he pushed the English army onto the peninsula of Yorktown. The French navy came and surrounded the peninsula. The English were trapped and they surrendered. After that, the English did not have a strong army in America. In 1783, a peace treaty was signed in Paris and England recognized the United States as an independent country.